Take caution, Patriarch. He flinches, nose wrinkling in tired objection at the wet stain of Wei Ying's vendetta, droplets needle-prickling the swell of Lan Wangji's wrist bone. He started this war, and so he will finish it.
"I did not."
But he applies himself, patiently, to the task of slipping each sleeve to his elbows, of raising the rims and rounding them at the joint, to knot and keep aside. Silk shielded, he lifts of the bathing waters in cupped hands, indulgence and consistency of the wafting warmth a betrayal of the heating talisman, carved stark on bleached parchment like cuttings on flayed flesh, flung idle and strained on the barrel's side.
Brother would know his instincts, name him a child. ( Brother absents. ) Throughout this, Lan Wangji keeps the line of Wei Ying's eye, carries the weight of water up, then over, to drip down seamlessly and dilute the ink spill of Wei Ying's hair, the top of his head.
As if it is the most natural conclusion of their evening, the tension of Arha's oozing presence reduced to empty thread. Beyond, little voices of hummed fireflies quarrel in unfriendly distance. Here, Lan Wangji weaves his fingers together and collects more water, salt-spumed, preparing to replicate his ministrations.
"Bow your head." Submit willingly and retain a few rice grains of dignity. How to cleanse the hair of a cat. "Spirits are often bound to people or places." But Arha and his legions have walked the canyons for days. "These are to a moment."
no subject
"I did not."
But he applies himself, patiently, to the task of slipping each sleeve to his elbows, of raising the rims and rounding them at the joint, to knot and keep aside. Silk shielded, he lifts of the bathing waters in cupped hands, indulgence and consistency of the wafting warmth a betrayal of the heating talisman, carved stark on bleached parchment like cuttings on flayed flesh, flung idle and strained on the barrel's side.
Brother would know his instincts, name him a child. ( Brother absents. ) Throughout this, Lan Wangji keeps the line of Wei Ying's eye, carries the weight of water up, then over, to drip down seamlessly and dilute the ink spill of Wei Ying's hair, the top of his head.
As if it is the most natural conclusion of their evening, the tension of Arha's oozing presence reduced to empty thread. Beyond, little voices of hummed fireflies quarrel in unfriendly distance. Here, Lan Wangji weaves his fingers together and collects more water, salt-spumed, preparing to replicate his ministrations.
"Bow your head." Submit willingly and retain a few rice grains of dignity. How to cleanse the hair of a cat. "Spirits are often bound to people or places." But Arha and his legions have walked the canyons for days. "These are to a moment."